Information, Operations and Management Sciences

Industrial Organization, Supply Chain and Purchasing:

This department designs, coordinates, and provides training on industrial organization, purchasing and supply chain as fundamental aspects of managing businesses.

Our courses are presented in all TBS Education programs and on many of the campuses, from the Bachelor’s program to MBAs and Executive Education.

In addition, the department offers advanced programs dedicated to students who are oriented towards supply chain and purchasing professions (including industry, consulting, distribution, transport, etc.) and require special expertise. Those programs include:

• The MSc of Supply Chain Management and Purchasing, within the Master in Management Program in Toulouse.
• The MSc of Supply Chain and Lean Management (SCALE), in collaboration with the Ecole des mines d’Albi-Carmaux
• The Specialized Master^® MASC of “Purchasing and Supply Chain Manager”, taught in French. In this program, we train high-level experts with a dual competence in the fields of purchasing and supply chain.

Our objective is to teach students the rigorous concepts, tools and methods necessary for any manager who wishes to understand and master the challenges and constraints of supply/ production/ distribution flows in a complex and changing economic as well as technological environment (digitalization, regulations and compliance, geopolitics, international trade dynamics, sustainable development, etc.).

Companies regularly deal with these flows to take operational decisions (like stock levels, transport modes, frequency of deliveries, quantities per delivery, quantities produced per year, etc.) as well as economic decisions (like the choice of product, price, technological positioning of the products sold, choice of marketing areas, choice of suppliers, etc.). One major aspect of managing industrial organizations is to allow a better understanding and analysis of these economic decisions within supply chains.

The scope of managing a supply chain covers the internal organization of companies in the supply chain, the determinants of the structure of firms and industries, the study of vertical relationships between organizations, the analysis of market behaviors of companies (oligopolies, cartels, collusion, predation, etc.), the innovation strategies of firms, etc.

The professors in the department are members of the Research Center of TBS Education. The results of their research are published in reference books as well as in the best international academic journals such as Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, International Journal of Industrial Organization, European Journal of Operational Research, Journal of Economic Theory, International Journal of Production Research, Review of Industrial Organization, Review of Network Economics, Operations Research Letters, Computers and Operations Research, Annals of OR, Journal of Productivity Analysis, Journal of Manufacturing Systems, Economic Review, Transportations Research part A, Marketing Letters, Telecommunication Policy, etc.

The Information Management Division develops courses that are linked to handling information in a society that relies on new technology and that tackle Big Data & Artificial Intelligence issues.

Our society is on the brink of a technological revolution that exceeds the revolutions brought on by the internet and mobile communication. Artificial Intelligence and Big Data are transforming the corporate world, redefining corporate strategies, business models, processes, products and services as well as decision-making processes.

The courses designed by our division focus on the stakes and challenges companies have to face in terms of data management and decision-taking, i.e. big data, business analytics, data science, machine learning and artificial intelligence.

We train students to become data analysts, chief data officers, data explorers, data planners, data strategists as well as expert consultants in innovation technology.

Our Division’s courses are spread out across the entire TBS Education programs:

• Digital vocabulary, the evolution of the digital world and its integration into the corporate world are important elements in the training of our students. Through the course entitled “Working in a digital and connected world”, our Bachelor 1 students are introduced to these concepts. They also acquire knowledge of business analytics and data visualization, enabling them to solve management problems and communicate results, through a course entitled “Business analytics and data visualization”. In the third year of the Bachelor’s program, our students who have chosen the “Commerce and Distribution” stream are trained to present data of all kinds in a graphic format that makes them easy to understand and interpret, thanks to the “Data Visualization” course.
• Learning how to manage information via research and quantitative data management are key skills for today’s managers. An introduction to “Business Analytics” is included in the first year of the 3-year Master in Management program and details traditional statistical methods to manage and analyze data bases in order to respond to management issues.
• This course moves to a more advanced level in the second year (first year of the 2-year program). The benefits of every statistical method are detailed in a managerial decision-making context, with a first approach to coding with R software.
• During the same year, the theme of Big Data analytics is broached over the course of one semester and tackles numerous subjects, such as an introduction to Big Data, to artificial intelligence technology, digital transformation, auditing tools, data visualization tools, automatic learning for big data, social media analytics as well as the legal, ethical and social implications of Big Data.

Our Division is also active in 4 Master of Science programs, which are taught in the last year of the Master in Management program.

• The MSc Artificial Intelligence and Business Analytice: Prepare future analysts, consultants and strategists in data processing and artificial intelligence project management.
• MSc Data Sciences and Artificial Intelligence : In just 12 months, the program enables you to acquire expert skills, both in technical skills (AI) and, above all, in soft-skills that can be used in the workplace.
• The MSc Digital Transformation & Business Innovation: This MSc gives its students the opportunity to acquire professional expertise in the digital transformation and innovation sector. The MSc trains young professionals for high-demand positions in this emerging sector.
• The MSc Digital Marketing and E-Commerce: This program offers highly specialized professional expertise in web marketing and social network management. It is co-managed with the Marketing Department.

In addition, thanks to its interdisciplinary nature, the division actively participates in various specialized courses requiring specific knowledge in statistics and information systems for finance, marketing and accounting/management control.

The division counts 13 resident professors, with additional affiliated professors and visiting professionals, who teach in their field of expertise. The professor-researchers of this division are highly active in research in the fields of statistics, econometrics, information systems, e-commerce, innovation management and digital transformation. A wide range of research projets and collaborations with international universities and companies focus on new technologies, such as blockchain, the Internet of Things, Big Data and Artificial Intelligence. Our research also focuses on the analysis of technology adoption, use and impact on an individual, organizational, national and societal level.